Русская мафия!
[fieldset=Foreword]I am happy to hear that all of you have enjoyed Русская мафия (hereby referred to as Russian Mafia for ease of reading) and would like to thank all the active players, and Enderfive for cohosting. It was an enjoyable experience for me and I’d like to share this write-up of the setup itself, so that you can either pick up on things you might have missed whilst playing (or reading, for players who did not manage to sign up), or for those who may be interested in hosting games in the future, that you may learn a thing or two from a retired veteran player and experienced host.Russian Mafia is the game which marked the grand return of Mafia in this community. I had been working on the setup for a month or two in early 2015, and perfected it in the weeks before the real run starting in January 2016. The game is, as stated, a spiritual successor to the zany antics of Pirates vs Cowboys - but instead of featuring as much ridiculous craziness as possible, I chose to focus on a few specific attributes to give the setup a unique flavour and differentiate it from my other games.[/fieldset][fieldset=Setting]This particular game is set in a fictional Russian village called ‘Nedostatochnost’ - the name is taken from the Russian word for ‘failure’ in the sense of crop failure or organ failure, a fitting name for a small farming village based around the ailing potato trade in the months leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hunter correctly identified the ‘crop failure’ significance in the name during Day 2 - well done to him for discovering that early on! Most of the player names were created with a random name generator, but four players (2 Town, 1 Mafia, 1 Mkhedrioni) were given female names to enable them access to the Ladies’ Night meeting every 3 days, and some were given unique names (Swarovski the Clockmaker, Slutski the Hooker etc) based around their roles. It’s great to see that many latched on quickly to the theme and started developing rumours relevant to the setting - the reports of sect leader ‘Vissarion’ in JKangaroo’s telegrams caused a stir somewhat on one day, which is ironic given an event which unfortunately didn't happen...
In this time period, tensions were very high amongst the general populace and many revolutionary groups were being formed to take advantage of the tense atmosphere, the Mkhedrioni being one of them. The Mkhedrioni was a Georgian nationalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1989 in order to bring Georgia to independence in the final years of the Soviet Union - I will expand more on them later. The proportionally high number of surveillance roles across both Town and non-Town roles also pays homage to the heightened paranoia displayed by citizens and government alike in the last few years of the USSR - the ‘neighbourhood secret police’ effect with the vast majority of roles being able to dig up evidence on other players seems to have gone down well in causing an extreme lack of trust and bringing some very strong arguments especially towards the latter half of the game, where the chaos began to subside and the setup morphed into a more pure logic-based game.
The potato buckets were used to give the game more night visits (for the surveillance roles) and introduce theft mechanics in the game - as the game featured no items aside from the aforementioned potatoes, it turned potatoes from less of a pure ‘item’ to a commodity which these four players (and eventually, all of the Mkhedrioni) had to fight for, especially after the consumption of two of the buckets thanks to the Pyrotechnician night-killing and exploding on the same night. Any role who had ever owned a potato bucket met every even-numbered night in a ‘Potatoholics Club’, wherein all of those holding potato buckets would be able to find out who else was currently in possession of such an item.[/fieldset][fieldset=Town]The Town itself seems on first glance to be unfairly large in comparison to the four-man Mafia, the three-man Mkhedrioni, and the lone wolf serial killer Clockmaker. However, the ratio when the non-Town are considered as a group is shown to be balanced: 14 Town vs 8 non-Town, given the possibility of a ridiculous number of night kills per night, is most certainly fine with all of this factored in.
As mentioned earlier when I discussed the setting, the theme of the Town’s roles was very much ‘surveillance’. A contrast was made from the beginning between people who were in official positions of power (the two Policemen and the Censorer, for instance) to those who took matters into their own hands (the Sleepwalker and the Watcher). Care was taken to give those with actual jobs more detailed flavour names, so that those with less ‘official’ sounding roles would by default seem less believable - forcing them to play smart and avoid a lynch in the shadow of their more credible counterparts.
Discussion of the Town roles continues below:
- Templars: Naoh (Vanilla), Hunter (Miller)
The templar mechanics of the two villagers was included to give some element of certainty to what is usually the most scum-hunt based role in the game. In a closed setup with many unexpected things happening each night, scum-hunting is nearly impossible without at least one fellow clear. With Hunter being made a miller (appearing guilty on reports and appearing as the ‘Mafia Templar' when dead), Naoh would have had quite the job on his hands if his partner was lynched. - Mad Gunwoman: Notme
A fairly simple role, and a twist on the night actionless villager, by means of having a day action upon lynching. If Notme had not had died, the ability could have had a pivotal role in providing the town with a second lynch. - Pyrotechnician: Infected_alien8_
A combination of the well-known Mafia archetype roles of the bomb and the vigilante, the Pyrotechnician is the most potato-dependent of all roles requiring not just to own the potato buckets, but using them up with his night actions. With the option to either throw the potato-based bomb for a kill or keep it and blow up his assailant if killed that night, Infected_alien8_ was also given the alternate night action of searching another player for potatoes - if found, he would have a second bomb to keep on his person. This ended in hilarious effect when he selected to kill Duffie’s roleblocked/saved target during Night 3 and ended up with collateral deaths, killing off both him and Duffie. - Policemen: Timdood3 (Naive until Policeman death, then Sane), Nottykitten (Paranoid until Censorer death, then Sane)
The two policemen were given identical role names but wildly differing backstories and sanities, encouraging counterclaiming and the doubting of what is usually a solid clearing when both cops target the same individual. It was up to the cops to test their previous targets to see how their sanity changed once their sleeper conditions were met. - Surgeon: myusername22
The surgeon role kills all visitors to the saved target - which ended up inadvertently killing a few power roles along the way. - Neckbeard: Jivvi
The virgin role (no deaths the following night upon lynching/killing) was given a hilarious rebrand into the ‘Neckbeard’, a weeaboo focused only on escaping the USSR to Japan. Jivvi’s unlikely night action was a ⅙ chance of killing a player he aimed his revolver at (with a ⅙ chance also of killing himself instead) but according to the die I rolled when he targeted Notme, I rolled a 6 and the kill went through. Bang! - Mimic/Turncoat: Mastersten
A true wild card of a role, and also possibly one of the most important for the Mafia or Mkhedrioni: Mastersten had the ability to steal the role of any living player whilst sided with the Town, but when night-killed by any non-Town faction, his unstated sleeper ability would activate and he would not die, but convert to the relevant faction whilst holding the stolen role. - Curfew Enforcer: Duffie
Remember how in the flavour text it revealed that the Curfew Enforcer was deathly afraid of clocks after having to rely on them for so long? If the Curfew Enforcer visited the Clockmaker or vice versa, the Clockmaker would have been killed in a fit of rage from the Curfew Enforcer, and Duffie would have become Vissarion the cultist. A shame it never happened, but JKangaroo managed to predict the almost-existence of such a role - imagine if it actually happened! - Tracker: Enderfive
Unfortunately Enderfive died N1 so his role did not see too much screen time. However, upon the death of the Censorer his confidence would be shaken - after this, any reports he receives will have 2 random players added to them, leaving him to decide who was the true target of the visit. - Watcher: Catgirl
Catgirl was the other town role given a potato bucket - night visitors would have a 50% chance of being poisoned by taking a potato. Her N1 report was not a Tracker report, but rather a Watcher report destroyed, fabricated, and reconstructed by the then-trainee Censorer - the full details of each successful report will be posted in his section, as it is the most interesting role the Town has. - Sleepwalker: erik
“Old Sacha”, the ancient sleepwalker/ghost (even he does not know himself, in his backstory) is perhaps the most unbelievable surveillance role of all. Visiting a random player every night as a mandatory visit, and finding everyone who visited that player (including night chats) seems extremely unlikely to other Town players, but adds to the overall hear-say atmosphere of the setup. - Censorer: Ooglie101
Perhaps the most interesting role of the whole Town, if not the game, was the Censorer. A trainee government worker operating in the village, his first night report was designed to be extremely unreliable - either reversing the Tracker/Watcher mechanics and inventing a random visitor or visitee, flipping the cop investigation, or scrambling a telegram into an unreadable mess. Night 2 would take the second half of the message, and future successful nights would take the whole message, leaving no trace in the targeted role’s inbox aside from a brief letter from the Censorship Bureau, rendering them informationless that night.
The Mafia were quick to catch on to the fact there may have been a second killing faction of sorts - but their fears were not confirmed until the death of Samlen of the Mkhedrioni after Night 2.
Discussion of the Mafia roles as follows:
- Hooker: Jolteon42
A vanilla Hooker ripped straight from Mafia games of yore, and given the hilarious name of ‘Ivana Slutski’ to make whatever fake name-claims others chose seem less ridiculous compared with this. - Godfather: Watermelon aka Mulbery
The Godfather took the night kill as his action until his death, at which point it was made as a group decision with all visiting the target (risky with the amount of tracking/watching roles). Appearing innocent on reports may not have meant much given the sanity of the cops, but more importantly, the fact that his report status was the opposite of the other Mafia and the other non-Town factions would have lent some credibility to any Town claim he could have made. - Railroad Officer: 77thShad
The Mafia’s potato bucket-based role, and a typical switching role. His night action depended on the presence of the bucket, and when stolen he would have to visit a player to get it back - risking showing up as a visitor to a player who might die that night, while in search of his precious bucket. - Suitmaker: Aqua
The Suitmaker functioned as a tailor and could, once only, forge an entire identity for a killed player to show up as. Unfortunately, even with all the backstory and factions available, Aqua sprung for the ineffective ‘Soviet Spy’ as Nottykitten’s forged identity, not even specifying a name or possible action for me - I tried to make it work as the host, but it was clear from the get go that this was a very weak attempt at a tailoring.
Below are discussions of the Mkhedrioni roles:
- Potato Farmer: Samlen
The final potato bucket-based role and initial night-kill leader of the Mkhedrioni was Samlen, who used his potato bucket to give potatoes to players who would die at the end of the next night following the poisoning. Upon his death, the usual potato antics would follow, with either JKangaroo or CaffeinatedKitty having to sacrifice one of their night actions to search for a potato bucket to continue the faction’s killing spree. - Contraband Officer: CaffeinatedKitty
CaffeinatedKitty had the ability to check any role to see if they had the ability to kill - a novel idea in a setup based mostly around visits and unreliable cop reports, and one that could have seemed very beneficial to the town if used correctly, and also extremely beneficial for the Mkhedrioni to take out potential threats. - Telegram Officer: JKangaroo
JKangaroo was given 15 characters per night (unused characters would roll over into the next night) to send Courier New telegrams to any player. He was allowed to send as many characters as he liked each night - either to send all 15 each night, or let them pile up to send sentences after a few nights. Choosing to start rumours about Vissarion during the first night and making potato-based jokes the second, JKangaroo then switched gears upon Samlen’s death to claim survivor, bringing more chaos to the potato antics of the game and throwing the town into a spudded fervour.
- Clockmaker: Vatumok
The lone-wolf serial killer of this game, Vatumok (or ‘Ivan Swarovski’, partially named after the Czech glasscutter) had a unique win condition alongside the usual ‘be in the last 2’ based around his clock.- The clock starts at 9.
- If victim is Town, the clock goes up 2 hours.
- If victim is Mafia, the clock goes down 1 hour.
- If victim is Mkhedrioni, the clock goes up 3 hours (down 2 hours on Night 1)
- The Clockmaker becomes unkillable while the clock displays 11.
- The Clockmaker dies immediately if the clock hits 6.
- The Clockmaker wins if the clock hits 12
Спасибо![/fieldset]
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mum can be proud of me :>
